Skewing the Presidential Polls

Have you ever wondered about the Presidential polls?   How they are determined and what do the numbers really mean?  And what "secret sauce" do they use for likely voters, turnout, and independent voter trends?  In the 2012 Presidential race and polling the narrative (interpretation of the polls by MSM) is that the Presidential sweepstakes has been tied, with Obama now pulling away.   But there is a problem with this pro-Obama story line that is being parroted by the Main Stream Media (MSM).   Here is an article on how polls can be skewed:

http://www.examiner.com/article/is-the-latest-washington-post-abc-poll-skewed-for-obama

Here is a polling web site that is adjusting for "likely voters" vs. registered voters.   The website Unskewed is using different voting trend models, including the higher number of registered Republicans in 2012 vs. 2008 and the historical trends suggesting that independents are breaking towards a more conservative vote:

http://unskewedpolls.com/

And here is the backgrounder on Scott Rasmussen from Rasmussen reports, who has been the most accurate pollster in the past 10 years, including the first to predict that Scott Brown (R-Massachusettes) could upset the Democrat in the recent US Senate race.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports

So, who are you going to believe?    I'd go with the actual voters this November.   But in the meantime, I'd watch Rasmussen and Unskewed out of the corner of my eye, in spite of the steady drumbeat by the MSM that polls are showing Obama more favorably (due to their Democrat skew).

(c) 2012, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org